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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Often, I'll be walking down the street minding my own business when a complete stranger will come up to me and declare, "Steve, I desperately want to be a book collector but I have little money and no idea what to collect."

"Are you attracted to the strange, the bizarre, and the off-beat?" I'll inquire. (This is the standard line I use when meeting anybody for any reason).

The good news is that for most of their adult lives, Russell Ash and Brian Lake have been collecting strange books from another planet that looks astonishingly like Earth. They compiled what amounts to an annotated checklist of their area of interest, Bizarre Books, originally published in 1985.

The books within are not expensive to collect and provide further evidence that when it comes to collecting categories, the only limit lies within the collector's imagination.

Here's a sample of bizarre books that Ash and Lake have amassed. Though it agonizes me, I'll refrain from providing rude or otherwise humorous captions. I'll leave that to you, gentle reader, for the Comments section below this post.

Scouts in Bondage by Goeffrey Prout. (Aldine Publishing, 1930).

The Oldest Trade in the World, and Other Addresses for the Younger Folk by George H. Morrison. (Oliphant, Anderson & Ferrier, 1898).

And I Stood There With My Piccolo in My Hand by Meredith Willson. (Doubleday, 1948).

An Essay on Diseases Incidental to Literary and Sedentary Persons by Samuel Auguste Andre David Tissot. ((1768).

Sweet Sleep. A Course of Reading Intended to Promote That Delightful Enjoyment by Charles J. Dunphie. (Tinsley Brothers, 1879). I encourage readers to provide a list of their favorite slumber-inducing volumes.